Documentation in practice – Common Language III

When you document an observation or a completed task you don't just write 'somewhere' – you write into a shared national structure called Common Language III (FSIII). It exists because municipalities need to be able to reuse and share data about the citizen's course across professionals and systems.

§What is Common Language III?

Common Language III is, according to the Danish Local Government Association (KL), the municipal standard for documentation and data about municipal task solving in the health and elderly care sector. The purpose is to create reuse of overview, data, structure and context in municipalities' electronic care records. The standard builds on experience from the previous Common Language II.

§From KL to KOMBIT

KL has developed FSIII since 2012 in cooperation with municipalities and subject matter experts from across the country. Since May 1, 2021, it is KOMBIT that has taken over operation and maintenance of the method and standard. The country's municipalities are committed to implementing FSIII by the end of 2027, and in January 2024 KL's board approved a simplification of the method developed with input from all 98 municipalities — a simplification that has since been implemented in FSIII 2.0.

§Why it matters for you

• 01Data about the resident follows along if she moves between departments, services or municipalities.
• 02Common concepts mean that an observation means the same thing regardless of who reads it.
• 03The structure supports nurses, therapists and assistants speaking the same language about the citizen's functional level and interventions.
• 04Good, structured documentation is patient safety – what is not written, the next colleague cannot act on.

§How to write well in practice

Regardless of how advanced the electronics are, a prosthesis stands or falls with how well the socket – the part that connects the residual limb to the rest of the prosthesis – fits. This work is still very much a craft: the orthotist takes measurements or scans the residual limb, moulds the socket and adjusts it continuously as the limb's shape changes. At the same time, the orthotist often works closely with the supplier's technicians to set up and maintain the actual electronics so the prosthesis continues to function correctly.

§A national direction

With the spread of FSIII and later FSIII 2.0 – which in 2026 has been expanded to also include the standard for rehabilitation after discharge from hospital – documentation becomes more than an obligation you fill in. It becomes a shared language that makes it possible to safely follow a user's journey across municipal care, the hospital and the general practitioner.

“What is not documented does not exist for the person who comes after you.”